explaining_errors_in_star_trekfandomcom-20200215-history
Dead Stop
'' |image= |series= |production=40358-031/204 |producer(s)= |story= |script= Mike Sussman and Phyllis Strong |director= Roxann Dawson |imdbref=tt0572198 |guests=Roxann Dawson as Repair Station Voice (Uncredited) |previous_production=A Night in Sickbay |next_production=Marauders |episode=ENT S02E04 |airdate=9 October 2002 |previous_release=Minefield |next_release=A Night in Sickbay |story_date(s)=Unknown (2152) |previous_story=Minefield |next_story=A Night in Sickbay }} =Summary= Four days after the events of the Romulan minefield incident, Captain Archer and Commander Tucker inspect the damage to the ship with an inspection pod. Given the amount of damage, and the travel time to Jupiter Station, Archer decides that it is time for someone to help them out for once, and orders Ensign Sato to send a general distress call. A passing Tellarite freighter soon responds, and sends a barely understandable message directing them to an automated repair facility, three days away at Warp 2. Upon arriving at the facility, the ship is scanned and the station reconfigures itself to suit the crew's needs. Enterprise then docks, and the station sets the full repair price at 200 liters of warp plasma. By using its advanced replication technology, the station can complete all repairs in just 34.2 hours. Archer, left without any other option, agrees, although later he has a gut feeling that not everything is as it appears. On board, intrigued by the station's technology, Tucker convinces Reed to locate the station's computer, but their attempt to enter is detected, and they are beamed back to the bridge. Meanwhile, a false comm message, ostensibly from Archer, directs Ensign Mayweather to an area currently being repaired. He is found dead soon after, an apparent victim of an electrical shock. When Doctor Phlox discovers that the dead Mayweather is a well-replicated duplicate, Archer resolves to search the station for him. Tucker then 'distracts' the computer, and Reed again trips the alarm, giving Sub-Commander T'Pol and Archer time to enter a computer room filled with bodies — among which are a Klingon, a Vulcan, and a Cardassian — apparently the station's method of augmenting its own processing power. Mayweather is rescued just as the station starts attacking Enterprise in retaliation. Archer then detonates the warp-plasma payment to blow up the station and escape. As the ship warps away the few active components of the station begin repairing the damage. =Errors and Explanations= Nit Central # Yasu on Wednesday, October 09, 2002 - 7:08 pm: When T'Pol asks for water, cold she picks it up and sniffs it. Now I know that Vulcans have keen senses of smell, but it would have made more sense to scan the water. She probably has more trust in her own senses that any readout from a scanner – especially one produced by Humans. # SMT on Wednesday, October 09, 2002 - 7:20 pm: I'm not sure why localized damage in the port forward quarter would knock out subspace communications. Shouldn't there be redundancies? Oh well, I guess it was necessary to put them in that predicament so the episode could proceed. The redundancies could have been at least partly disrupted by the explosion. # Given the transit time (3.5 days) and Enterprise's speed (Warp 2, which is ~10c), this station was 0.1 light-years from Enterprise. Convenient, and lucky.LUIGI NOVI on Wednesday, October 09, 2002 - 10:59 pm: Where was it established that Warp 2 was 10c? Kazeite on Thursday, October 10, 2002 - 2:34 am: Well, that depends. According to the TOS scale, Warp 2 is 8c. In TNG scale it's 10c. (so Enterprise is either 80 ly or 100 ly from home... What was the number Archer quoted in Two Days and Two Nights? 90 ly?) Either way it's pretty impressive... to travel to the Helix and back, and achieve another 10 ly as well :) SMT on Thursday, October 10, 2002 - 10:29 am: And back to me: Archer implies that Enterprise is 130 light-years from Earth, and Tucker says getting back to Earth at Warp 2.1 would take a decade. Ergo, W2.1=13c, and presumably W2 is slightly less than this. (The TNG scale Kazeite notes is in the ST:TNG Tech Manual, which is an official Paramount product and therefore, by Phil's Revised Nitpicker's Prime Directive, a valid source.) LUIGI NOVI on Thursday, October 10, 2002 - 4:48 pm: Enterprise is apparently 130 light years from home, according to Archer’s line when they first find the food replicator in Act 2 about there probably not being a catfish within 130 light years. (Risa, however, is 90 light years from Earth.) # My larger question is, why is this station located in deep space, where passing vessels in need of repair would presumably be uncommon? To survive, predators need to be where the prey is. It could be located in an area once controlled by the race that created it. # The station replicators go too far in obeying requests. T'Pol asked for cold water, and got ice cubes in it, which she might not have wanted. Same with Trip's pan-fried catfish. I saw lemon and some side dish, and somehow I doubt the station tapped into Trip's Mom's secret serving requirements. ;-) LUIGI NOVI on Wednesday, October 09, 2002 - 10:59 pm: Actually, I noticed the exact same thing about the catfish dish, but remember that that station scanned not only the Enterprise, but the crew themselves. T’Pol referred to that scan that the Enterprise was subjected to when it first approached the station as a "bio molecular probe," which may suggest that it didn’t merely scan technology, but possibly neural patterns as well. Influx on Thursday, October 10, 2002 - 8:48 am: She mentioned it probably got the recipe from the ship's database (although why it didn't include a nice white wine to go with it is beyond me) :) # If the station can replicate matter, why can't it replicate warp plasma? (Of course, that's just cover for what it really wants.) LUIGI NOVI on Wednesday, October 09, 2002 - 11:15 pm: Good point, although there is precedent for certain substances that are difficult to replicate. The cure for Anchilles fever, as seen in Code of Honor (TNG), could not be replicated. Hytritium, which is used to treat tricyanate contamination, apparently can't be replicated, as seen in The Most Toys (TNG). A couple of episodes, Distant Voices (DS9) and In the Pale Moonlight (DS9), featured people trying to get their hands on biomimetic gel, as if it can't be replicated. As for warp plasma, Tozin tried to acquire some of Voyager's in Fair Trade (VOY). # So the station kidnaps sentient beings to serve as parallel processors in the computer core. Okay, but what larger purpose does this serve? It seems the station was placed to lure unwary travellers and snatch their crewmembers, but all those crewmembers do is keep the station running, and nothing outside of that to serve the station's makers that I could see. There's no net gain for the station makers. Of course, using my SF-writing skills, I can quickly posit that the station had become a self-sufficient end in itself, no longer dependent at all on its makers, seeking to do no more than keep itself functioning. I.e., alive. Spooky idea ... and would have been nice to have a hint of that in the episode's resolution, but hey, you can't have everything.Assuming of course that the station makers haven’t died out – the station could be still carrying out it’s programming because it never received a shutdown command. #''LUIGI NOVI on Wednesday, October 09, 2002 - 10:35 pm:'' Trip tells Archer in the teaser that the subspace antenna was damaged, and that they only have short range capability. Can’t they repair it or build another one? Given the specs, these guys can create quantum beacons that are 900 years ahead of their time! If they have spare materials, how hard would it be to make a subspace antenna? Some of the spares and/or materials could have been rendered unuseable due to damage. # I don’t know if this is a nit, but with all the incredibly sophisticated technology aboard that station, that rotating duct fan seen in the shaft where Trip and Reed try sneaking around in Act 2 just seemed a bit out of place to me. # Archer asks Reed in Act 3 if they’ve found Travis’ parents yet, and Reed says that T’Pol’s been working on it, but that it could take time because cargo ships are hard to track down. Why is this? If the Horizon works the Draylax-Vega Run, as mentioned in Fortunate Son, wouldn’t it be fairly easy to contact? They may have switched to a different run by this time. # One wonders how this repair station decides when and when not to kidnap visitors and replace them with duplicates. The fact that the Tellarites direct the Enterprise to this place would suggest that the Tellarites have had their ships repaired there, paid their bills, all without any fuss or tragic "accidents." Otherwise, why the hell would they send people there? Of course, then one has to wonder why the repair station never took any Tellarites, but chose Travis and all those other victims we saw. I also wonder if Archer plans to contact the Tellarites who he spoke to in his episode and ask them about their experiences at the station. Yasu on Thursday, October 10, 2002 - 7:53 am: First of all the transmission was garbled so there might have been more to the story than what we and Enterprise heard. Secondly if Phlox hadn't caught on and Enterprise went on with the mission and ran into someone else the crew of the Enterprise would probably recommend the station to someone else. As far as the crew is concerned Travis's accident was not the fault of the station, he was in an off limits area that the station had said crew should keep out of. renn on Thursday, October 10, 2002 - 2:28 pm: Maybe the Tellarites on that particular ship didn't have any special abilities and knowledge the computer wanted. # Trike on Thursday, October 10, 2002 - 2:55 am: Trip mentions the “saucer section” twice. Although identifying part of the ship as the saucer section might have made sense on the original series or TNG, it really doesn’t here. The ship has no other section besides the saucer section. It would have made more sense if he said the “saucer” or the “ship.” LUIGI NOVI on Thursday, October 10, 2002 - 4:48 pm: Sure it does. The nacelles, the nacelle struts, the rear "fuselage," etc. # Trip also notices the repair station is reconfiguring to be wide enough to hold the saucer section, but it appears that the nacelles extend past either side of the saucer, so the station would to become wide enough to hold them. LUIGI NOVI on Thursday, October 10, 2002 - 4:48 pm: The nacelles do not extend beyond the edge of the saucer. They’re clearly within the saucer’s circumference when looking at the ship head on. However, you’re right in that Trip says the station is reconfiguring to fit the saucer, when in fact it ends up holding the entire ship. The nacelles also end up within the repair area. Trip should say, "It’s reconfiguring to fit the ship." ' # ''renn on Thursday, October 10, 2002 - 2:28 pm: Why would the brains be damaged by being hooked up for so long? The computer would want them in good condition. ''The Undesirable Element on Thursday, October 10, 2002 - 2:42 pm:'' My guess is that the brain becomes dependent on the computer. I'd hate to compare it to the Borg, but I will anyway. Picard was connected to the Borg for a few days so he was able to be disconnected with few difficulties. Seven was with the Borg for many years and her separation was much more difficult.' # ''Kazeite on Friday, October 11, 2002 - 9:06 am: Tell me... since when Enterprise stores data neccesary to replicate catfish? If there's "no catfish within 130 light years", then how did station know how to properly replicate one? I can understand that it downloaded recipe from ship's computer, but recipes generally doesn't include information requied for replication :) Yasu on Friday, October 11, 2002 - 9:16 am: I believe T'Pol said the DNA of the catfish was in Enterprises files. Since Enterprise is on a mission of exploration and likely to encounter alien organisms, it's reasonable that they would have a complete biological database with information such as DNA for all known organisms. I assume DNA would be all that's required to replicate something. LUIGI NOVI on Friday, October 11, 2002 - 3:07 pm: She did in fact say that its genome was on file. # Dragon on Saturday, October 12, 2002 - 8:22 pm: Where is the station storing either the physical raw materials it would need to construct replacement parts, or the generators and energy supplies that would be required to replicate said parts? To me, it didn't look physically large enough to accommodate either of those. LUIGI NOVI on Sunday, October 13, 2002 - 2:45 am: Would a matter/antimatter reactor be enough? Does one take up that much space? # LUIGI NOVI on Thursday, June 05, 2003 - 8:22 am: TJ Fleming: When one doesn't understand a radio transmission, the appropriate reply is "say again." "Repeat" is how one requests another artillery barrage. LUIGI NOVI on Thursday, June 05, 2003 - 8:22 am: Is there any reason why it has to be this way in the 2150's, TJ? ScottN on Thursday, June 05, 2003 - 9:25 am: The military is quite traditional. LUIGI NOVI on Thursday, June 05, 2003 - 11:43 am: But Starfleet is a new hybrid service. It is not a branch of the military that exists today. TJFleming on Thursday, June 05, 2003 - 1:57 pm: But they still use military protocols for the most part--even technically obsolete ones. (They "fire" phasers, for example, notwithstanding that no pyrotechnics are involved.) LUIGI NOVI on Thursday, June 05, 2003 - 10:55 pm: That doesn't mean that every single term or phrase is used. Things change, TJ. TJFleming on Friday, June 06, 2003 - 7:12 am: Why would they replace a term that's clear, unambiguous, and time-tested with one that's none of the above? What's really happening here is scripting by people who don't know how to operate a radio. I do, so when I hear dialog like this, it interrupts my "suspension of disbelief." And that makes it a NIT. LUIGI NOVI on Friday, June 06, 2003 - 9:40 am: Because Starfleet does not possess an unbroken connection to the services it drew from. After WWIII, people had to rebuild. Starfleet would create at least some its protocols from scratch. These two things mean that it's not going to be an exact copy of other services in its procedures, and I don't see why the above use of terms you mentioned is any more clear or unambiguous than the ones used. Even if one opines that they were, evolution of such things doesn't not always follow a path towards clarity anyway (although perhaps it should). Does everyone here understand those color code alert warnings the government has started using after 9/11? Don't many fast food chains categorize their fries or sodas as "medium," "large" and "extra large" or "supersized"? Why is the alcohol content of bottled beverages given in a number that is TWICE the percentage of the alcohol in it? If military protcols and other procedures are so clear and umambiguous, then why are the not standardized even today throughout the four branches of the military? One has generals, another has admirals, etc. # constanze on Sunday, June 12, 2005 - 12:53 am: When I saw the secret room and the crewmen lying there, I thought this was like Matrix. (Surely the station doesn't need living people for energy??? Esp. not so few??) It looks as if only one person from each ship is missing. So did the tellarite captain not think it worth mentioning that ships tend to loose one crew member when they use the station, or was that part of the message lost because of the transmission problems? Thande on Sunday, June 12, 2005 - 12:36 pm: Presumably the station only steals crewmembers from a small percentage of the ships it services, and probably prioritises the ones with inquisitive crews so it can easily pass off its abductions as accidents. So I would guess the Tellarites didn't poke around and thus didn't lose anyone. constanze on Sunday, June 12, 2005 - 1:37 pm: Or the tellarites believed the accidental-death-clone explanation. (How much do they care about individual crew members? Maybe they weren't as suspicious of other race's motives as Archer was?) Thande on Sunday, June 12, 2005 - 2:25 pm: The 4th season Tellarite/Andorian arc indicates that the Tellarites are extremely suspicious about everything, and certainly do care about individual crew members living or dying. Category:EpisodesCategory:Enterprise